The Jews of Djerba

Lucette Valensi, historian and Director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris) and Avrom Udovitch, major specialist in the history of medieval Islam and professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East at the university from Princeton in the United States, have generously donated their ethnological work on the Jewish community of Djerba to the library of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. These surveys carried out in the 1970s led to the publication in of their 1984 book “Jews in the Land of Islam. The communities of Djerba” in collaboration with Jacques Perez, photographer in Tunis. We present to you an unpublished selection of photographs taken by the latter in 1979. 

We would like to thank Jacques Perez who gave us the kind permission to distribute his photographs as well as Lucette Valensi and Avrom Udovitch who entrusted us with the conservation of their archives. The choice of photographs for the virtual exhibition, as well as the captions, were made by Marie-Amélie Duval, audiovisual documentary intern at the AIU, with the assistance of Amaury Toulouse and Jean-Pierre Riom, multimedia technician, under the supervision of Jean-Claude Kuperminc, Director of the Alliance library. 

You can find other books on Djerba by searching our library catalog .